1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for key-inputting Chinese and Japanese ideograms called "Kanji" through a Japanese sentence typewriter or the like, wherein the operator keys-in a reading of a Kanji to be entered on a keyboard having character keys for entering the reading of Kanji, candidate Kanjis having that reading are then displayed on the display screen, and the operator selects one of the displayed candidate Kanjis which meets the operator's intention.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There have been known the following methods for selecting Kanji in Japanese sentence typewriters using a so-called candidate display-and-choice method, in which a number of candidate Kanjis are displayed in response to the key operation and the operator chooses a relevant one.
In one method, a number of candidate Kanjis are displayed with identification numbers on a row in the lower section of the display screen and the operator chooses a relevant Kanji to be inputted in typewriting a Japanese sentence by depressing a numeric key corresponding to that Kanji. In this method, if a large number of candidate Kanjis are displayed, the operator has to scan visually a wide range of the screen in searching for a relevant Kanji in the displayed character string. In addition, numeric keys, which are used for designating Kanjis, are generally located at the top of the keyboard, regardless of whether it is an alphanumeric keyboard or a "Kana" (Japanese phonograms) keyboard (which uses the so-called "Kana's" including two types of "Hiragana" and "Katakana") and this is very inconvenient is operation. Therefore, this method not only causes fatigue of the operator's eyes from a long term operation, but provides a low typewriting speed due to the inconvenient key operation for choosing Kanji.
In another method, candidate Kanjis are displayed sequentially at the next character position of the sentence which is being displayed. This is carried out in such a way that a Kanji having the first priority is first displayed, and if it is not the relevant Kanji, a candidate Kanji having the second priority is displayed at the same position by depressing a display key for designating the second priority candidate. The operation is repeated until the relevant Kanji is displayed, and upon appearance of the revelvant Kanji it is entered by depressing the selection key. This method does not require the visual scanning motion for searching for the relevant Kanji but the operator has to depress the display key several times before finding the relevant Kanji with a low-order priority, and high-speed typewriting for a Japanese sentence cannot be expected.